


Errands

by orphan_account



Series: Among The Quiet And Shadows (Magic Series) [2]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-12-23 04:13:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11981898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: 'Magic isn’t always as glamorous as it may seem, you know.' Magnus said, stepping back slightly to lean against the wall beside the door. 'It’s the small, non-showy things that keep the world together.'





	Errands

**Author's Note:**

> Magnus takes Alec ingredient shopping.

 

* * *

 

Alec stumbled out of the portal narrowly missing the exposed tree root right by his feet. The two or so seconds it took for him to straighten himself up and look around were long enough for him to realise Magnus wasn’t beside him anymore. 

 

“Sorry about that.” Magnus said as he walked gracefully out the fading light of a closing portal a few feet in front of Alec and brushed his hands down his coat, “This place is littered with wards - and a few minor curses. Luckily we didn’t get split up too far apart. And all our limbs are still attached.” He continued laxly. 

 

Alec walked over to meet him, eyes squinting as they adjusted from the dim orange light of the city. “A heads up might have been nice” 

 

“Yeah, but where would the fun be in that?” 

 

Alec smiled at Magnus slightly before his attention turned back to his surroundings. The place looked relatively normal, a close huddle of trees thinning out beside the banks of a river. It was getting darker - the last dregs of sunlight slipping through the tree branches and letting a crisp chill settle over the surface of everything. Cicadas crescendo-buzzed around them as water ran lazily through the river slowing Alec’s thoughts to a gentle lilt. The serenity and clean air were a welcome change.

 

He realised Magnus had moved a few meters down and was crouching on the stony banks of the river. He was skimming sparks of blue light over the river’s surface happily. Alec watched fondly as the small burst of light shattered the water into electric momentarily before skipping another foot or so forward, dissipating slowly as they continued. He smiled, looking up at Magnus’s content expression before he moved to join him. Every hair on the back of his neck stood up as he reached Magnus, the air thick-full of magic. Magnus didn’t look up from where he had perched - his eyes focused deep on the river. Alec wondered for a moment if he was trying to hit something specific, but there seemed to be little urgency or accuracy to Magnus’s movements. 

 

Watching the careful way Magnus was tilting his head, the last of the summer-sun catching in the angles of his face, Alec crouched himself. He rooted around in the strange mix of dirt and sand for a while, searching for a stone that had been worn flat enough before turning his arm to throw it flat against the water. 

 

“… six, seven, eight.” He counted, turning to Magnus with a smile. “And I didn’t even use magic.” 

 

“That be fightin’ talk, Lightwood,” Magnus replied with a low growl, as he fished around the ground beside him for a stone. 

 

“Make it a fair fight,” Alec said, already with a palm-full of rounded stones, “No tricks, Bane.” 

 

Magnus laughed, quickly, drawing his arm into his chest and throwing - making sure he turned his eyes back to Alec quick enough to see his stunned impression. 

 

“ _Twelve_? That’s just first-try luck!” 

 

“Alexander, I’ve got centuries on you. It is best just to admit that there are certain things you cannot beat me at.” 

 

“Never.” 

 

Alec filed through his collection of rocks before choosing one, throwing it visibly harder than his first. 

 

“…Seven, Eight. _Damn_.” 

 

“We did come here for a reason besides throwing rocks.” Magnus began, already gearing up to throw another in, “I don’t want to keep you too long, we have two other places to go after we finish up here.”

 

“I’m supposed to be filling out mission reports so, please, keep me as long as you like.” 

 

“Alexander.” Magnus feigned shock as he held his hand against his chest, “I see bad company really does corrupt good character.” 

 

“I think it’s the other way round.” Alec smiled before throwing another stone against the water.“What are we collecting here anyway?” He looked around himself for a few seconds failing to find anything particularly special about the area, “Trees?”

 

“In a sense …” Magnus stood again and stepped up from the small dip in the embankment. 

 

“Do we, I don’t know, cut one down?” Alec asked.

 

“No, no. We need saplings.” Magnus smiled to himself excitedly, “Oh, I have so many stories still to tell you.” He began to walk with direction. Alec stood to follow as Magnus gesturing around himself. “This forest is a protected secret for a reason. Centuries ago, a woman local to a village that was once near-by was tried and executed for practicing witchcraft. Tia, her name was. A kind woman - a warlock - who was in love with humanity in all its complexity and strangeness, offering services to those in need when she could. Mundanes, Downworlders, even the occasional Shadowhunter. Welcomed and respected in her community for decades.” 

 

Avoiding roots and rocks that Alec swore appeared from nowhere, the two continued to walk along the riverside. The sun was low in the sky shining into Alec’s eyes as he followed behind Magnus. 

 

“But times change, sometimes it’s hard for those of us who have seen centuries turn to change with them as quickly as mortals. Life can transform in so many different ways within the span of mere generations. You can watch laws come to pass and be thrown out, religions formed, stories made and told and changed all within a few lives. It is hard to have to never stop changing with the world around you. Tia found it too hard. When magic became feared instead of venerated among the people of the village, she couldn’t bring herself to go into hiding or find refuge among the rest of the Downworld. She continued to practice as she always had. Healing, warning, bringing fortune to the townspeople. No one saw it that way.” Magnus stopped, breathing in sharply and turned to face Alec.

 

“They killed her. Took her body out to the forest and buried her - hands and feet bound in case she did not keep to her grave. Years passed, the forest grew and grew as it never had in the centuries before. Plants and animals thrived, magic flowed throw the blood of everything. The air dense with energy. All originating from one spot - Tia’s grave.” He turned again to look towards a large, imposing tree full of red-gold leaves and the buzz of insects. 

 

“The tree had sprung to life in a matter of only a decade, brimming with life and leaves. Everything around it flourishing through all seasons. Nothing in this forest ever dies. Nothing starves or kills or freezes over dead in the winter. Everything that grows here, that is born here, it lives forever. The village moved - the forest is full of natural wards that keep people out without much harm or malice. Just a reputation of bad luck and curses around the perimeter. Most people leave it alone out of a vague sense of unease in approaching.”

 

“That’s amazing,” Alec said, voice genuine, slow and quiet. 

 

Magnus abruptly leaned over to the tree trunk and lay his hand palm-flat against it. Trails of green light pulled from Magnus’s hand and trailed down the bark of the tree. As they reached the roots they fed into the dirt, illuminating the root system below. Alec stared awe-struck at the ground beneath him as it glowed dim through the dirt in all directions. All around them the air sang in a wind-howl of energy. He bent at the knee to reach down and touch the dirt as it ebbed in and out of light below, warm to the touch and moving in slight vibrations. To Alec’s surprise, the dirt began to crack in places allowing for small green-glow plants to sprout. 

 

“I come here every so often and collect saplings from the tree to bring back to New York.” Magnus began as Alec’s eyes followed the path of plants erupting from the ground. “They don't possess the exact same qualities as Tia’s tree, but they cultivate a great amount of energy that balances the magic flow in the city quite well. The city gets so congested with residual magic that is such a pain to deal with on my own. One of my best-kept secrets I’d say.” 

 

With a quick wisp of blue smoke from Magnus’s hand a small wooden chest materialised beside his feet. Flicking open the tarnished-copper clasps he began to gently pull a few saplings one-by-one from the soft, disturbed earth around them and place them in the open chest. Alec watched intently as Magnus worked in slow movements - imagining Magnus’s fingers tracing bolt-shock down his spine, urging something to life within him. When Magnus had gathered five or so saplings into the chest he closed it tight and with one smoke-flick the box and dirt dusting Magnus’s hands disappeared again. 

 

“One down,” Magnus said standing up quickly and beginning to walk back to the clearing where they had arrived, “Two to go.” 

 

“If this place is such a secret, then why bring me?” Alec asked, pushing himself up from the ground and dusting dry dirt off his knee before he followed at Magnus’s heel. 

 

Stopping in his tracks and bringing his arms outstretched at his side, Magnus twisted around to face Alec at the sudden clap-bang of a portal opening. “I trust you,” Magnus said, thoughtfully looking in Alec’s eyes as he stood before turning back to step through the portal. “Also, I get bored.” He laughed.

 

 

* * *

 

 

When he had entered the portal in the clearing he hadn’t exactly expected to end up in an empty office lobby. The place was a wide-open vision of white and silver. 

 

“This place can get a little overwhelming. Best to keep your mind occupied while we’re here.” Magnus said from beside him, “If we keep talking you should be fine.”

 

“Well, you’re the man with all the stories, Magnus,” He stepped in turn with Magnus as they walked across the white floor, “tell me one I haven’t heard.” 

 

Magnus stopped in front of a white, bare wall. “Okay,” he said as Alec stood beside him slightly confused. 

 

“Every culture and era has their own stories of shadows or doubles,” Magnus began as he pulled his hands from his pockets, “Reflections of the world turned over and made strange. A thing that wears your face and enters your life in a steal. Some are real, some are not.” 

 

Magnus grabbed Alec’s hand and before Alec could react the wall in front of him began to melt down just left of centre. He stared widely, following the paint and paper fall in heaps on the floor to reveal a wooden door. It looked old, far older than the rest of the building. A large brass handle already turned and open a slither at one side. 

 

Magnus turned to look at Alec as he walked through the door with a slight smile, “This one is both.”

 

Alec felt delirious the second he entered the doorway. The strange sensation of resistance against his skin set his teeth on edge. Something in the air smelt like the copper-tang of blood - only slightly, but enough for someone so used to the smell of it to pick up on. 

 

“There are no names for what they are. No specific one, anyway. They start abstractly. Leave your mouth tasting of saltwater, shift your gaze in the light patches of dark rooms. Pick away slowly at you. Small things you wouldn’t even begin to notice about yourself begin to go missing. Habits, instincts. Your morning coffee without milk, the way you walk when you’re alone. Altered and then taken as something begins to slip into your mind.” 

 

The slanted beam of light from the door thinned out as they stepped further into the tight-walled corridor. Alec could see the end of the hallway in dimmed light - a small opening in the ground settled squarely at the end. 

 

“Then it begins to eat your shadow. Gulping down on the dark that always follows you. Nips at your heel and waits for the light to go out so it can take your life from you and live it.”

 

As they reached the opening Alec could faintly hear the sound of rushing water coming from below. Magnus reached his hand out behind himself and waited for Alec to hold it again before sparking a fire-white shift of magic in his other that lit up the space a metre or so in front of them. Alec moved at the tug of his hand into the pit in the floor, following behind Magnus closely as he stared down in front of him. He couldn’t see far but it seemed they were moving down a circular stairway - if it could be called that - into nothing but pitch-black darkness beneath. The stairs themselves were merely jagged-edged slabs of rock jutting out of the sides of the wall. It looked like a large well, Alec thought, made of moss covered brick and smelling vaguely of rot.

 

“An imposter shadow is hard to spot, the differences are so small and the being has worked its way quietly into your life, hiding away in your habits and stealing slowly. But it still is not _you_ , it moves on its own. If you can catch it falter then you can tell. And if you catch it quick enough then you have a chance to stop it before it takes your place entirely.” 

 

Giving into the urge to look behind at his own shadow Alec couldn’t help but feel ridiculous to see it still there and following him obediently as he walked. Still, he dug his heels into the stone steps a little harder as he walked. 

 

“The trap varies depending on who you ask. Outline the shadow in chalk. Douse it in flames. Blast it with industrial lights. Sing it out with verse. However it is severed from the person doesn’t matter - they are always left shadowless. Some say a person lacking a shadow cannot pass over to the afterlife. Some that they are more vulnerable to the tricks of demons.”

 

The steps grew smaller as they winded down the walls. Alec could feel the slip on them worsen as the sound of water grew louder. 

 

“When it comes to the truth, there’s not much to go on. Stories are stories, in the end, just tales you tell when the dark comes to scare each other with. But there is always something true in all of them - shadows belong to all things. And all we require to see them is just a little bit of _light_.” 

 

Magnus threw the small gather of energy in his hand suddenly up into the air. It flew up quickly and exploded into a burst of white-blue above them, parting the route back up to the building off in a sheet of crackling light. The space they were in was illuminated in parts - Alec could see the water merely a metre from his feet now as it shifted darkly in froths with great force. The surface was covered in a strange reflection of colours. The space around it walled in the circle they had descended from but then opening out into a mass of brick that moved into a wall of darkness Alec could not see through. The entire place felt unnaturally large and much deeper than Alec thought possible for the time it had taken them to reach it. 

 

“This is a Tehom,” Magnus explained, “- a _shadow-pit_. One supposed cure for an imposter shadow is to cut it off at the heel and trap it in the shadow box that once belonged to the demon Haures. Haures once used the box to trap the shadows of those who summoned him improperly in order to ensure their soul's passage to hell and his dominion when they died. The box was lost in a bet held between Haures and a summoner where Haures was tricked into pulling his own shadow into the box. Once trapped, the shadows would be taken to the Tehom to be imprisoned in the formless waters for eternity.” Magnus finished, stepping one step down from Alec and letting go of his hand to rifle through his coat pockets. “Never to know life or death.”

 

“ _The earth was without form and void, darkness was over the face of the deep. And the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters._ ” Alec quoted, staring thoughtfully at the murky water. 

 

It moved fast - covered thick in oil-slick iridescence that glinted harshly under the blue light. The smell was nauseating. A mix of something dead and warm shifting in and out with the flow of water. 

 

Slowly, things became loosely defined. The shapes upon the water lengthened and formed. Lines and curves began to take shape and then recede just as quickly. The water and the thick oily substance parted in places - almost shying from the areas most exposed to the light. Alec felt dizzy looking at the water - a rush of seismic tension running through his head as he tried to pick patterns and workable shapes out of the constantly shifting mass in front of him. The water lapped at his boots as it whirled and spluttered. Alec felt sick.

 

Magnus had pulled one of his small glass vials he used for potion ingredients from his coat. He bent down on his step as best he could given the space and dipped the vial into a thick mass of the oil-like substance. Quickly capping the vial he shook the excess off the sides and held it up for Alec to see. 

 

“ _And God separated the light from the darkness._ ” Magnus said and then pointed to the ball of energy hovering above them, “The light,” then to a spot further down the expanse pitched in blackness, “The darkness,” and then again he shook the vial in his hand emphatically, “And the separation itself.” 

 

Just as suddenly as he had cast the light, Magnus drew it quickly back into his palm and gestured for Alec to lead the way back up. Alec turned on his heel and threw his hand back to grab Magnus’s as he began ascending the steps carefully as he adjusted to the darkness again. 

 

“Not much of the story is genuine - but whatever it truly is in that water, or whatever properties the water itself contains - it is essential in producing certain delimiting wards.” 

 

They reach the opening in the floor and file through it into the dim corridor again. The door still lay open further down. 

 

Magnus let go of Alec’s hand and stepped in front of him. “The boundary between two objects is, in itself, _something_.” He stood to a halt in the half-half light and dark produced by the open door before pacing backwards a few steps. Holding his hand out he knocked on the door a couple of times, “The separator of two states - the light and the lack of. Hope and despair. Love and hate. All light is something that can be distilled, passed around and spoken or sang or seen.” Magnus closed the few feet between himself and Alec, “Whatever it might be that is the light and the dark is immaterial. What does matter is,” Magnus leaned forward, “what we can use,” He reached up a hand to the back of Alec’s neck, “to separate them.” And kissed him. 

 

Magnus lifted his face away from Alec’s and turned to head out the door, “Come on, one more place to go,” He said over his shoulder as he continued to walk. Alec followed quickly behind. 

 

* * *

 

 

Alec rubbed his eyes sleepily as the portal behind them closed. 

 

“One day you’re going to have to tell me how you make portal travel look so effortless,” Alec said, running his hands through his ruffled hair. 

 

“And lose my aura of mystery? Absolutely not.” Magnus strode into the alleyway and looked around himself, turning his head and angling towards the sky. 

 

It was night. The loading bay signs from the garage-doored back entrance to whatever building they’d appeared behind cast a red glow over them, refracted in pools of disjointed light around the damp tarmac at Alec's feet liquid-like. Magnus was pacing like a caged animal, bouncing his fingers through the air thoughtfully. 

 

The alley almost reeked of night. Smoke from ducts drifted lazy in the air as Alec walked slowly against the wall. His fingers itched as the presence of something off-key seemed to linger around him. The lights overlapped densely, the air warm and choked with steam. 

 

Magnus had stopped beside another service door and looked at the ground as if considering the location. Alec walked over to glance down at the particular patch of dirty tarmac as well but saw nothing astounding there. He jumped back slightly as Magnus threw several small, flat rocks onto the patch of ground from his pocket. 

 

“Ley lines,” Magnus said as he met Alec’s questioning expression, “Large intersection of them right here. Good place to charge rocks.” 

 

“Charge rocks?” Alec tried to hide his disbelief but after visiting an immortal forest and what may have been a water-pit full of disembodied shadows, it was slightly underwhelming. 

 

“Magic isn’t always as glamorous as it may seem, you know,” Magnus said, stepping back slightly to lean against the wall beside the door. “It’s the small, non-showy things that keep the world together. Half the physical wards in this city are powered by rocks.” 

 

Alec hummed non-committedly as he moved over to join Magnus, hand itching at the back of his neck. The energy of the place was full in the air and pinching at his skin. The rocks lay on the ground and began to rumble slightly. 

 

Magnus shifted closer and let his head fall on Alec’s shoulder, “I’ll have you back to your ever so engaging mission reports soon enough” 

 

Alec groaned, “Sure you don’t have any other errands to run?” He said, running his hand over his eyes, “I _really_ hate paperwork.” 

 

Magnus laughed briefly, “Well, I can always find other ways to distract you from your job.” 

 

“I’m sure you could.” Alec smiled and slid his hand into Magnus’s as they watched the small scatter of rocks shake on the ground. 

 

Alec had always imagined Magnus had cut his teeth on explosions and transformations and wild-lit incantations flowing straight from his fingers. It had never really dawned on him the simplicity and ritual that lay at the heart of all Magnus’s power. The everyday tasks that no one stood stunned by or really noticed at all. The energy management, drawing of boundaries. Charging a little pile of rocks in a back alley somewhere in the city. 

 

He thought to Magnus’s books, his reams of scrolls and parchments, the vials of ingredients stored up on the shelves of his home. There was a strange intimacy to seeing it all. The process behind the power and knowledge Magnus showed the world. 

 

Alec’s thoughts were interrupted by Magnus pushing back off the wall. 

 

“These are done,” he said, crouching by the rocks and poking at them. He gathered them up in one motion with two hands and gathered them into his pockets where Alec heard them clatter against the vial he had placed there earlier. “And so are we,” he added happily. 

 

Motioning his arms ready to open a portal, Magnus turned to Alec again, “The Institute?” he offered, a grin on his face.

 

“Not yet,” Alec said, dipping his head as he smiled. 

 

Magnus’s struck his fingers. The faint blur of Magnus’s apartment appeared through the portal. 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for all the kind comments and responses to my fics - and any other content I have posted in relation to this fandom! I'm orphaning all my fics here so these are the titles of other Shadowhunters fics I have posted:   
> A Guest  
> Terra Incognita   
> Janus


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